In this blog post we will demonstrate the power of this trigger with an example: We will setup an automation aimed at rewarding new Mastodon followers with a coupon code. This not only showcases the custom trigger’s utility but also offers a practical incentive for increasing your Mastodon following.

An Overview of Mastodon

For those unfamiliar, Mastodon is an open-source, decentralized platform similar to Twitter. Unlike a centralized setup, Mastodon operates on a federated system of multiple independent servers or “instances”. This unique system gives users increased control, enabling them to select or create instances that match their preferences. Mastodon stands out due to its emphasis on user privacy and absence of algorithm-driven content.

Linking WordPress with Mastodon

Mastodon operates using the ActivityPub protocol. Simply put, this protocol allows users from different social networks to connect if both platforms support it. But it also allows us to connect our WordPress installation to the network. To establish this connection, we’ll be using the ActivityPub plugin by Matthias Pfefferle. Once activated, Mastodon users can follow your blog. Every time you post a new article, your followers will see this post in their timeline and they can interact with it. And of course, we want to be in that feed!

Setting Up the Automation

To encourage users to follow you on Mastodon, we’re offering them lets say a 10% coupon. This coupon is automatically sent to subscribers when they press the “Follow” button.

Here’s our automation setup: We utilize the “Custom trigger” and direct it to respond to the mastodon_new_follower hook. When this hook is fired, the automation sends out the coupon code to the customer who started following us.

Implementing the Custom Trigger

Let’s delve into the logic behind this. This part is a bit technical and assumes some familiarity with WordPress development. The process consists of two main steps:

In a first step, we need to somehow store the Mastodon URLs of our customers. This information is needed later to know exactly which customer started to follow us. Therefore we want to give our customers the possibility to enter their Mastodon profile URL during checkout and in their account. WooCommerce has a filter, we can utilize for that purpose: woocommerce_billing_fields:

add_filter(
  'woocommerce_billing_fields',
  function($fields) {
    $fields['mastodon'] = array(
      'type'         => 'url',
      'label'        => __( 'Your Mastodon URL', 'mastodon-automation' ),
      'required'     => false,
      'placeholder'  => esc_attr__( 'https://mastodon.social/@<username>', 'mastodon-automation' ),
      'autocomplete' => 'mastodon',
    );
    return $fields;
  }
);

Now that we store this information, we can tap into an event of the ActivityPub plugin. When a user follows our blog, Mastodon notifies our WordPress installation. The ActivityPub plugin triggers the activitypub_followers_post_follow action in response to which we will listen in our small custom plugin:

add_action(
  'activitypub_followers_post_follow',
  function($actorUrl, $object, $userId, \Activitypub\Model\Follower $follower) {
    /**
     * @var \WP_User[] $users
     */
    $users = (new \WP_User_Query([
      'meta_query' => [
        [
          'meta_key'   => 'mastodon',
          'meta_value' => $follower->get_url(),
        ]
      ]
    ]))->get_results();
    if (! $users) {
      return;
    }
    foreach ($users as $user) {
      if (! is_email($user->user_email)) {
        continue;
      }
      do_action('mastodon_new_follower', $user->user_email);
    }
  },
  10,
  4
);

In essence, the Follower object provides the URL to the profile of the new follower through get_url(). We then attempt to match this URL with those our users provided during checkout. When a match is found, the mastodon_new_follower action is activated, which provides the email address of our customer. As you can see, this is exactly the action we told our custom trigger to listen to; So once a match is found, the automation is triggered.

Conclusion

This is just one example of the potential of MailPoet’s new custom triggers. With a bit of code, you can craft unique automations that cater to your audience’s needs. And that is not all, you can extend your automations even with custom steps, which will fire hooks instead of listening to them. For a deep dive into the technical aspects of our custom trigger and the custom step, you should have a look into our knowledge base. We explain the technical details for the trigger here and for the custom step here.

Automation is at the heart of creating seamless, personalized experiences for your audience. With our powerful Automation Editor, you’ve already been able to craft workflows that nurture and engage your contacts. But now, we’re taking your capabilities to the next level by providing you with in-depth insights into every step of those automations.

What Automation Analytics brings to the table

1. Visual Journey Mapping: Gain a holistic view of your automation’s performance with an intuitive visual representation. See the exact number of contacts at each step, understand completion rates between steps, and identify potential bottlenecks that might need your attention.

2. Email Performance Breakdown: Dive deep into the effectiveness of every email in your automation. Track open and click rates to gauge engagement, monitor the number of orders triggered by each email, and measure the revenue generated. Keep a close eye on unsubscribes to fine-tune your content and strategy.

3. Revenue-Driven Insights: Uncover the direct impact of your automations on your bottom line. Explore the Orders section to dissect each purchase, learn who made it, what products were involved, which email spurred the action, and the overall revenue generated. These insights turn automation into a revenue-generating powerhouse.

4. Subscribers’ Journey Overview: Understand exactly where each subscriber stands in your automation. Track their progress, know their status, and get a real-time glimpse of their position in the journey. This level of visibility empowers you to make timely decisions to enhance their experience.

Why Automation Analytics?

Your success is our priority, and data-driven decision-making is the cornerstone of any successful marketing strategy. With Automation Analytics, you’ll unlock the ability to:

1. Identify high-performing and underperforming segments of your automation.
2. Fine-tune your emails based on real engagement metrics and revenue impact.
3. Optimize your customer journeys to boost completion rates and drive conversions.
4. Get a comprehensive overview of subscriber behavior, aiding in precision targeting.
5. Maximize your automation’s ROI and create more effective campaigns.

Thank you for choosing MailPoet as your partner in email marketing success. We’re excited to see how Automation Analytics transforms your strategies and delivers exceptional results. More Automation features coming up in autumn. Stay tuned and share your feedback at feedback.mailpoet.com.

To your automation success!

1. Abandoned Cart and Order Status Change Triggers: You can now kick-start automations when a customer abandons their cart or when there’s a change in order status. It’s a fantastic way to capture those lost opportunities and keep your customers in the loop.

2. Transactional Emails Made Easy: The order status change trigger can now send transactional emails without requiring marketing consent. The first “Send email” action immediately following the trigger automatically sends transactional email, while all the other emails in the campaign continue to require marketing consent. It’s a hassle-free way to keep your customers informed about their orders.

3. Powerful New Actions: We’ve supercharged our automation capabilities with a range of new actions. You can now effortlessly add or remove tags, lists, or edit subscriber custom fields. Want to send an admin notification or unsubscribe someone? There is an action for that.

4. New Automation Templates: We made “Abandoned cart reminder” and “Celebrating first-time buyers” templates available in the free plugin.

5. Filter Triggers Like a Pro: We know you love having control, which is why we’ve introduced the ability to filter triggers by the subscriber, WordPress user, customer, or order fields. Customization is the name of the game, and now you can tailor your automations with laser-like precision.

6. Run Automations Once per Subscriber: Now, it’s up to you to decide if your subscribers can receive the same automation only once or multiple times. Do you want to welcome new subscribers even if they resubscribe? No problem! Only a single abandoned cart per customer? Sure can do.

We can’t wait for you to explore these fantastic new features. There is more to come, with detailed automation analytics in mid-summer and more in autumn. Stay tuned and share your feedback at feedback.mailpoet.com.

Happy automating!

The signup confirmation page is the page your subscribers will see once they’ve clicked the confirmation button in your signup confirmation email. By default, in MailPoet this page will look similar to the one below, but with your theme’s styles applied.

To check what your current signup confirmation page looks like, head to Mailpoet > Settings > Signup Confirmation and you’ll see the option to preview your confirmation page.

In this post, I’m going to be showing you how to spruce this page up and make the most of this opportunity where you have your new subscribers’ attention.

Here’s how ours looks after a bit of tweaking:

Why should I change this page?

Your signup confirmation page is another touchpoint you have with your audience, so it’s a great opportunity to capture your new subscribers’ attention and get them interacting with your brand.

Encourage your new subscribers to explore your website; try including some links to more information about your brand, product, or service, or share some of your most popular blog content. You want people to engage with your website and visit as many pages as possible. After all, you’ve put a lot of hard work into it! And just because they signed up, it doesn’t mean you’re guaranteed their loyalty.

Building a stronger relationship with your subscribers at this early stage means they’re more likely to engage with and remain loyal to your brand from this point forward.

What to include on your signup confirmation landing page

If you’re not sure about what direction to take the signup confirmation page in, ask yourself some questions like “Why did I get them to sign up?”, “What is the purpose of this website?” and “What are the most popular pages/posts on this site?” – this should help you think about the next steps and actions a subscriber might wish to take.

On our confirmation page, we’ve decided to signpost to information/services that cover each stage of our buyer’s journey.

For subscribers who’ve already decided that MailPoet is the email marketing plugin for them, the ‘Download now’ option linking to the plugin repository makes this quick and easy for them to action.

And the link to our blog content is useful for everyone interested in MailPoet, but it’d be particularly helpful for existing customers who are keen to improve their email marketing skills.

This information is in addition to a nice illustration and a message that confirms their subscription to our mailing list – don’t forget to include this message! Failing to include this could leave subscribers wondering if their subscription has actually been confirmed, as well as being confused as to how they ended up on this page.

More ideas for your landing page

Still not sure what to include? Here are some more ideas for your landing page content:

• Offer a free download for subscribers
• For eCommerce stores, you could showcase your products – best sellers will work well here
• Include a video thanking your new subscriber for signing up
• Share a code for an exclusive discount or a special offer
• A link to your email archive so that your subscribers can see what to expect
• Add a fun GIF or animation.

Whilst some of these ideas may not be suitable for your brand, there’s almost always an opportunity to customize this page and improve your new subscriber’s experience.

How to create a customized signup confirmation landing page in MailPoet

Ok, so this bit technically isn’t in MailPoet! Instead, you need to add a new page for this purpose, via the WordPress dashboard.

The process of customizing and styling this page will depend on your theme and if you’re using an additional page builder. You may already have a page template that would be good for this purpose, which you can select in the ‘Page Attributes’ section of your page settings.

Regardless of you decide to “build” this page, it’s important to consider the following:

• Keep it on-brand. Your page should follow the branding and style of the other pages on your website. Creating a page in a completely different style would be confusing for subscribers, and is likely to take more time!
• Confirm they’re on your list. Remember to include a heading or clear message that provides confirmation to your subscriber that they’re now subscribed to your mailing list.
• Keep it simple! Signup confirmation pages are great ways of engaging with your new subscribers, but you don’t want to overload them with links and information. We recommend including just a few key pieces of content or links.

Once you’re happy with your page, all that’s left to do is adjust your signup confirmation page settings so that it links to your new page.

To do this, head to Mailpoet > Settings > Sign-up Confirmation and scroll to the ‘Confirmation page‘ option. Here you’ll be able to use the dropdown to select the page you’d like your users to see once they’ve confirmed their subscription.

And there you have it! Customizing your subscription confirmation landing page is a great opportunity to get new subscribers engaging with your brand and viewing your content.

In the final part of this series, we’ll be exploring welcome emails. Missed part one? Here’s how to improve your signup confirmation email.

Why should I change the look of my signup process?

In MailPoet, the first email your subscribers receive is the signup email. It’s the first point of contact they have, so you need to make an impact, and get as many people clicking through to confirm their email address as possible.

MailPoet lets you customize the subject line and content of that confirmation email, but did you know you can also hack it to add HTML? For instance, you might want to customize the font or make the confirmation link a bit more attractive by turning it into a button. It’s pretty simple!

Here’s how our signup confirmation email started out:

And here’s how it ended up:

How to edit this email

If you aren’t confident with code, then we’d advise you not to play with HTML in these emails!

You’ll find the editing box in MailPoet->Settings->Sign Up Confirmation (tab).

Writing first, design second

It’s a good idea to think about the copy first, before you add any styling. The key to a good confirmation email is to keep it direct, and ensure that the recipient does what you want them to do: click the subscribe link.

I just switched ours up a bit with a couple of minor tweaks to the copy and got rid of the link to our team page below our signoff (which isn’t necessary here) – it just detracts attention from the key objective.

I also decided to reinforce that they won’t receive any newsletters until they’ve confirmed, since I think the less tech-savvy people might not realise this!

Finally I added a message to ignore the email if they’ve received it but didn’t sign up. Part of the reason for double opt-in is to confirm that the email address given was handed over in good faith (i.e. not signed up maliciously by someone). Having this additional step ensures that the emails we send are wanted.

Button = action

I wrote a while back about how to get people clicking on your links, so I’ve made the subscription link commanding, short and easy-to-read. A text link, “Click here to confirm your subscription”, now becomes a button “Confirm your Subscription”.

Design

I’ve kept the design of our email quite simple, adding a heading, some font styling and of course, the button appearance to that subscribe link.

Here’s the code we pasted into the ‘Email Content’ box found in the Sign-up Confirmation tab:

You can find a copy and paste-able version of this in Gist so that you can copy our styling and made the necessary modifications to it like colors, fonts, and image header etc.

And here’s where you might want to change things:

In order of appearance, here’s what we changed:

• red = the color of the background (needs changing in both places to make it work properly)
• light blue = the color of the newsletter body
• black = the URL that the header clicks through to
• orange = the header image URL, dimensions and the alt tag (if the image isn’t downloaded)
• pink = the font color
• purple = font face, the first one is the most likely to be seen
• green = the font size
• grey = the font color used in the button
• yellow = the button background color
• lime green = font face used in the button
• dark blue = font size used in the button

Need to get some colors for your email? Try this color picker.

Want to do your own thing? Sure, here’s some things you need to know:

1. Since the [activation_link] contains the anchor tag, the only way to style the link without editing the plugin is to add a span tag inside it.
2. If you line break your code, it will automatically add <br> tags for you, which isn’t acceptable between <head> and <body> tags for example, so you’ll need to put all of these on one line as shown above. You’ll also need to consider this when adding your own line break tags.
3. Don’t forget that if you want to add a header image, it’ll need to be in your media library or hosted online and you’ll need to get the URL.

It’s a good idea to check it by signing up to your own form!

In Part 2 we’ll discuss the signup confirmation page, and in Part 3 we take a look at the signup confirmation welcome email.